Below are key excerpts of revealing news articles on a former Baltimore police sergeant who is exposing horrible police brutality he witnessed and even participated in, key politicians who have held dual Israeli-American citizenship, a former FBI agent who claims clear evidence 9/11 could have been stopped but wasn't, and more.

Read also wonderfully inspiring articles on an exciting solution to chronic homelessness that is saving U.S. cities and states lots of money, seeing life though "divine-colored glasses," an ABC News report on an apparent angel saving a girl's life in a car accident, and more. You can also skip to this section now.

A former Baltimore Police Department officer named Michael Wood caused a stir online when he began tweeting some of the horrible things he claims to have seen during his 11 years on the job. Here's a [phone interview] transcript, interspersed with some of Wood's tweets. Balko: You mentioned seeing cops urinate and defecate in the homes of suspects, even on their beds and their clothes. How common was that?Wood: There’s a particular unit that does that. Everyone knew it. They usually blame it on the dog. [Tweet] "A detective slapping a completely innocent female in the face for bumping into him." Balko: One common criticism asked why you didn’t report these incidents. Wood: I’m totally guilty. I should have done more. [Tweet] "Swearing in court and [official documents] that suspect dropped CDS [controlled dangerous substances] during unbroken visual pursuit when neither was true." Wood: It all goes back to this whole us versus them thing. Your job is to fight crime, and these are the guys you do it with. They aren’t really even people. They’re just the enemy. This is the culture. There’s a powerful bureaucracy at any big city police department. A few guys run the whole show. A few old white guys hand-pick who climbs the ranks. [Tweet] "Targeting 16-24 year old black males essentially because we arrest them more, perpetrating the circle of arresting them more." Balko: How do we make things better? Wood:
I think it starts with empathy. We need to stop all this warrior talk, the militaristic language, and the us versus them rhetoric.

Note: Read the entire revealing article for a rare glimpse into the common corruption inside a big city police department. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption from reliable major media sources.

As a young U.S. Army soldier during World War II, Rollins Edwards knew better than to refuse an assignment. When officers led him and a dozen others into a wooden gas chamber and locked the door, he didn't complain. None of them did. Then, a mixture of mustard gas and a similar agent called lewisite was piped inside. "It felt like you were on fire," recalls Edwards, now 93 years old. "Guys started screaming and hollering and trying to break out." Edwards was one of 60,000 enlisted men enrolled in a once-secret government program – formally declassified in 1993 – to test mustard gas and other chemical agents on American troops. But there was a specific reason he was chosen: Edwards is African-American. While the Pentagon admitted decades ago that it used American troops as test subjects in experiments with mustard gas, until now, officials have never spoken about the tests that grouped subjects by race. All of the World War II experiments with mustard gas were done in secret. [Subjects] received no follow-up health care or monitoring of any kind. They were sworn to secrecy about the tests under threat of dishonorable discharge and military prison time. In 1991, federal officials for the first time admitted that the military conducted mustard gas experiments on enlisted men during World War II. However the race-based experiments remained largely a secret until ... 2008. Despite months of federal records requests, NPR still hasn't been given access to hundreds of pages of documents related to the experiments, which could provide confirmation of the motivations behind them.

Note: Explore an excellent timeline of horrifying secret government experiments on unsuspecting subjects. And read an NPR article on how they located a number of subjects of these experiments.

It's a peculiar feature of American relations with Israel that more than a few senior diplomats posted from Jerusalem to Washington were once US citizens.The present Israeli ambassador, Ron Dermer, was born in Miami Beach and carried an American passport until he renounced it in 2005 in order to serve as the Jewish state's economic envoy in DC. When Dermer lived in the US, before moving to Israel two decades ago, he was a Republican party operative. Dermer's predecessor as envoy in Washington, Michael Oren, has now created his own diplomatic uproar with a remarkable attack on Obama that appears at least partly rooted in his disillusionment with the president as leader of the land of Oren's birth. Oren, a New Yorker and US citizen until 2009 when he became ambassador, has stirred outrage by suggesting that the president is not a loyal American. In extracts from a book to be published on Tuesday, Ally: My Journey Across the American-Israeli Divide, Oren accuses the president of policies that "imperilled Israel" not least over Iran. Oren wrote in the book of how disturbed he was that Israel's "closest ally had entreated with our deadliest enemy on an existential issue without so much as informing us". Oren, who is now a member of Israel's parliament, writes that Obama is soft on terrorism, a claim open to challenge from those on the end of US drone attacks.

Mark Rossini, a former FBI special agent at the center of an enduring mystery related to [9/11] says he is "appalled" by the newly declassified statements by former CIA Director George Tenet defending the spy agency's efforts to detect and stop the plot. Rossini, who was assigned to the CIA's Counterterrorism Center (CTC) at the time of the attacks, has long maintained that the U.S. government has covered up secret relations between the spy agency and Saudi individuals who may have abetted the plot. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers who flew commercial airliners (on 9/11) were Saudis. A heavily redacted 2005 CIA inspector general's report, parts of which had previously been released, was further declassified earlier this month. The Obama administration has [still] refused to declassify 28 pages dealing with Saudi connections. Rossini and another FBI agent assigned to the CTC, Doug Miller, learned in January 2000 that one of the future hijackers ... had a multi-entry visa to enter the U.S. But when Miller and Rossini attempted to warn FBI headquarters that al-Mihdhar could be loose in the U.S., a CIA supervisor ordered them to remain silent. Rossini says he is "deeply concerned" by how the agency continues to suppress information related to contacts between the CIA and Saudi Arabia, particularly when the spy agency is declassifying other portions of documents to show that it did everything possible to thwart the September 11, 2001 plot. "There would have not been a 9/11 if Doug's CIR [Central Intelligence Report] on al-Mihdhar was sent," he told Newsweek in an email. "Period. End of story."

Mark Rossini [was] a high-flying FBI official in Washington a decade ago, when he was a special assistant to the bureau's chief spokesman. A boneheaded move ... cost him his career in 2008. He's making a determined effort ... to close some of the gaping holes in the official 9/11 narrative. Rossini [has] been at the center of one of the enduring mysteries of 9/11: Why the CIA refused to share information with the FBI ... about the arrival of at least two well-known Al-Qaeda operatives in the United States in 2000, even though the spy agency had been tracking them closely for years. The CIA did block him and Doug Miller, a fellow FBI agent assigned to the ... CIA's Osama bin Laden unit, from notifying bureau headquarters about the terrorists. Rossini and Miller [had] learned earlier from the CIA that one of the terrorists (and future hijacker), Khalid al-Mihdhar, had multi-entry visas on a Saudi passport to enter the United States. When Miller drafted a report for FBI headquarters, a CIA manager in the top-secret unit told him to hold off. Incredulous, Miller and Rossini had to back down. Years later, Rossini still regrets complying with that command. If he had disobeyed the gag order, the nearly 3,000 Americans slaughtered on 9/11 would probably still be alive. The CIA has long insisted it shared intelligence about [this] with the FBI, but records gathered by the 9/11 Commission contradict this assertion. No one has come up with a plausible explanation. When the first 9/11 report came out ... all the people who were responsible for not sharing information [had] their names ... taken out. They were commended and moved up.

Note: A 2009 Nova documentary on PBS, “The Spy Factory,” explored and confirmed Rossini's allegations in depth. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing 9/11 news articles from reliable major media sources. See also the excellent, reliable resources provided in our 9/11 Information Center.

A system intended to speed help to vaccine-injured Americans has instead heaped additional suffering on thousands of families. To investigate vaccine court in depth, the AP read hundreds of decisions, conducted more than 100 interviews, and analyzed a database of more than 14,500 cases. Among the AP's findings: * Prominent attorneys have enlisted expert witnesses whose own work has been widely discredited, including one who treated autism with a potent drug used to chemically castrate serial rapists. Some of the most prominent experts set up nonprofits questioning vaccine safety. Many doctors hired by the government to defend vaccine safety in court have ties to the pharmaceutical industry. * The government fights legitimate claims ... worried that if they concede a vaccine caused harm, the public will react by skipping shots. If government doctors had their way ... 1,600 families would not have gotten more than $1.1 billion in cash and future medical care between the court's opening in 1988 and then end of 2012. * Cases are supposed to be resolved within 240 days. Less than 7 percent of 7,876 claims not involving autism met the 240-day target. Most non-autism cases take at least two and a half years. Hundreds have surpassed the decade mark. Several people died before getting any money. "The system is not working," said Richard Topping, a former U.S. Department of Justice attorney who handled vaccine injury claims but resigned after concluding his bosses had no desire to fix the major flaws he saw.

Note: Read the entire article to see how the vaccine court is deeply flawed in may ways. Then read an article showing how the government removed data from it's website which showed an increase in court victories by those claiming harm from vaccines. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing vaccine news articles from reliable major media sources. See also the excellent, reliable resources provided in our Health Information Center.

Neil Young ... has a new album coming out at the end of June called "The Monsanto Years." And it's a biting attack on the seed giant -- as well as other big corporations. The title track refers to "the poison tide of Monsanto" and describes a farmer who "signs a deal for GMOs that makes life hell with Monsanto." Young also lashes out at Starbucks in a song called "A Rock Star Bucks a Coffee Shop." "I want a cup of coffee but I don't want a GMO. I like to start my day off without helping Monsanto," Young sings in his trademark nasal whine. The singer announced ... that he would no longer drink Starbucks lattes because the company, along with Monsanto, was part of the Grocery Manufacturers Association trade group. That organization sued the state of Vermont to overturn a law that would require food and beverage companies to disclose on their labels if GMOs are used in the products. "GMO labeling matters. Mothers need to know what they are feeding their children. They need freedom to make educated choices at the market," Young said. Young also rails against the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling on campaign finance in several songs. And he criticizes Walmart's labor practices in a song called "Big Box," which has the following verse: "People working part-time at Walmart never get the benefits for sure." So far, it looks like Walmart isn't planning to retaliate against Young. You can preorder "The Monsanto Years" at Walmart.com.

Despite an explosion in technology and a huge increase in worker productivity, the middle class continues its 40-year decline. Today, millions of Americans are working longer hours for lower wages and median family income is almost $5,000 less than it was in 1999. Meanwhile, the wealthiest people and the largest corporations are doing phenomenally well. Today, 99 percent of all new income is going to the top 1 percent, while the top one-tenth of 1 percent own almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent. In the last two years, the wealthiest 14 people in this country increased their wealth by $157 billion ... more than is owned by the bottom 130 million Americans. Large corporations and their lobbyists have created loopholes enabling corporations to avoid an estimated $100 billion a year in taxes by shifting profits to ... offshore tax havens. US companies are buying back billions of dollars of their own stock in a way that manipulates stock prices, hurts the economy and, by the way, used to be against the law. Instead of putting resources into innovative ways to build their businesses or hire new employees, corporations are pumping their record-breaking profits into buying back their own stock and increasing dividends to benefit their executives and wealthy shareholders. It is a major reason why CEOs are now making nearly 300 times what the typical worker makes. We ... must do a lot more to rebuild the middle class, check corporate greed, and make our economy work again for working families. It is time to say loudly and clearly that corporate greed and the war against the American middle class must end.

Note: The above article was written by 2016 presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on income inequality from reliable major media sources.

More than 300 international companies including Pepsi, Ikea, FedEx, AIG, Deutsche Bank and Abbott Laboratories allegedly secured secret deals from Luxembourg to drastically reduce their global tax bills. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), citing leaked documents, reported that the companies appear to have channelled hundreds of billions of dollars through the European duchy, and saved billions of dollars in taxes. PricewaterhouseCoopers is alleged to have helped multinational companies obtain at least 548 tax rulings in Luxembourg from 2002 to 2010. These legal secret deals allegedly feature complex financial structures designed to create drastic tax reductions. The rulings provide written assurance that companies' tax-saving plans will be viewed favourably by Luxembourg authorities. Some firms have allegedly enjoyed effective tax rates of less than 1% on the profits they've shuffled into Luxembourg. The ICIJ claims to have reviewed 28,000 pages of confidential documents before reaching its conclusion. The documents include hundreds of private tax rulings, known as "comfort letters", that Luxembourg provides to corporations seeking favourable tax treatment. Earlier, the European Union (EU) initiated a probe on Luxembourg over its tax treatment of big companies such as Amazon and Fiat Finance, which apparently violated European law. Luxembourg officials have supplied some information to the EU in connection with the investigation but have refused to provide a larger set of documents relating to its tax rulings.

The US National Security Agency (NSA) spied on French Presidents Jacques Chirac, Nicolas Sarkozy and Francois Hollande in 2006-12, Wikileaks says [citing] "top secret intelligence reports and technical documents" from the NSA. A file dated 2010 suggests that French officials were aware that the US was spying upon them and intended to complain about it. According to the summary of an intercepted exchange, the French envoy to Washington ... discussed Mr Sarkozy's plan to express his "frustration" over US unwillingness to sign a "bilateral intelligence co-operation agreement". "The main sticking point is the US desire to continue spying on France," the intercept says. [One analyst commented] "Of course they know that spying goes on – even between friends. But the cardinal rule is not to get found out. When you do, you must expect the full force of diplomatic outrage." In response to the alleged leaks, National Security Council spokesman Ned Price said: "As a general matter, we do not conduct any foreign intelligence surveillance activities unless there is a specific and validated national security purpose. This applies to ordinary citizens and world leaders alike." In 2013 Brazilian media reported that NSA documents showed the agency had also spied on Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and President Enrique Pena Nieto of Mexico. [Also] in 2013 the NSA was accused of spying on German Chancellor Angela Merkel. German media later reported that Germany's national intelligence agency had spied on ... the EU's headquarters on behalf of the US.

Note: The claim of a "threat to national security" is widely used both to perpetrate and to cover up huge amounts of illegal behavior. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on secrecy excesses from reliable major media sources.

Politicians, lawyers, activists and survivors of child abuse crowded into a committee room in the Palace of Westminster ... demanding a thorough and transparent government inquiry into historic child sex abuse allegations. Rumours have swirled in recent years about a cover-up in the British establishment involving senior politicians and police that has seen prominent figures engaging in child abuse and murder. Police have described evidence from one survivor relating to abuse at the Dolphin Square estate in London and at least three murders "credible and true". Yesterday's event, arranged by the WhiteFlowers group, was designed to keep up the pressure on home secretary Theresa May. The group has recently been vocal in challenging May's decision to exclude representatives of victims' groups from the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, which has been dogged by controversy after both Baroness Elizabeth Butler-Sloss and Dame Fiona Woolf were forced to resign from chairing it due to their links to establishment figures. A New Zealand judge was appointed to chair the inquiry earlier this year. She has said that "the appointment of victims or survivors to the panel will not, in my view, be consistent with the objectivity, independence and impartiality that is required of members of an independent panel" - comments that have left campaigners furious. John Mann MP ... spoke, demanding that the Official Secrets Act be lifted. One survivor who was placed in care in homes in Rotherham, Warrington, North Wales and Rochdale, told the audience in an earlier meeting that abuse had taken place in each home.

The increasingly tense relationship between the United States and Russia might be about to face a new challenge: a Russian investigation into American moon landings. In an op-ed published by Russian newspaper Izvestia on Tuesday, Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for the government's official Investigative Committee, argued that such an investigation could reveal new insights into the historical space journeys. According to a translation by the Moscow Times, Markin would support an inquiry into the disappearance of original footage from the first moon landing in 1969 and the whereabouts of lunar rock, which was brought back to earth during several missions. "We are not contending that they did not fly [to the moon]. But all of these scientific – or perhaps cultural – artifacts are part of the legacy of humanity, and their disappearance without a trace is our common loss. An investigation will reveal what happened," Markin wrote, according to the Moscow Times translation. In 2009, NASA itself admitted that it had erased the original video recordings of the first moon landing among 200,000 other tapes in order to save money, according to Reuters. However, NASA has since restored copies of the landing, using recordings from other sources such as CBS News. The organization says that due to restoration efforts, the recordings' quality is superior to the original one that has gone missing.

Note: The New York Times has reported that the moon rock donated to the Dutch was a fake. And explore an intriguing article about the disappearance of the original lunar landing videos. How could NASA lose and/or erase what are among the most historic video recordings ever made? And how could it be possible to restore the quality of the original videos using major media sources? For an abundance of stunning, reliable information along these lines, see the excellent resources provided in our UFO Information Center.

Meet Sam Tsemberis. He's all but solved chronic homelessness. His research, which commands the support of most scholars, has inspired policies across the nation. The results have been staggering. Late last month, Utah, the latest laboratory for Tsemberis's models, reported it has nearly eradicated chronic homelessness. Phoenix, an earlier test case, eliminated chronic homelessness among veterans. Then New Orleans housed every homeless veteran. Homelessness has long seemed one of the most intractable of social problems. For decades, the number of homeless from New York City to San Francisco surged – and so did the costs. At one point around the turn of the millennium, New York was spending an annual $40,500 on every homeless person with mental issues. Tsemberis ...unfurled a model so simple children could grasp it, so cost-effective fiscal hawks loved it, so socially progressive liberals praised it. Give homes for the homeless, and you will solve chronic homelessness. Success begat success. The federal government tested the model on 734 homeless across 11 cities, finding the model dramatically reduced levels of addiction as well as shrank health related costs by half. "Adults who have experienced chronic homelessness may be successfully housed and can maintain their housing," the report declared. Utah's Gordon Walker, explain[s] how his state succeeded at eliminating homelessness – and saved millions, "It was costing us in state services, health-care costs, jail time, police time, about $20,000 per person. Now, we spend $12,000 per person."

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.

For more than 10 years, I spent hours at a time ... looking for the inner light. This meditation was how I opened myself to the divine within me. Then, one day, my brother Billy, a troubled soul and sometime drug addict, changed all that by telling me an important secret. "Being in an earthly body limits the way you perceive light. Your eyes can't see the light directly, only the things it shines upon, so the light remains invisible, just like the soul does. The light of the higher worlds makes visible what is invisible on earth: the divine nature of all things. God, or Spirit, or whatever you choose to call it, is undeniable where I am. The light rays that sparkle all around me ... erase any harm I suffered in my entire lifetime." Had Billy said these words when he was still alive, I might have thought he was experiencing drug-induced euphoria. But quite miraculously, my brother shared this with me months after he died. To sync with Billy [I tried] to emulate what he's doing up there down here. Put On Your "Divine-Colored" Glasses: 1. Close your eyes and imagine rays of light beaming into you from higher, kinder, more beautiful worlds. 2. Take a few deep breaths and with each inhalation, imagine you are breathing this divine presence filled with understanding and healing deep into your core. 3. Rest in this space for a while; float in it like a warm, soothing pool. Everything in existence, what you can and even what you can't see, is sending you light. As you practice this, over time ... you'll feel nurtured and protected. Your mind may ease up on focusing on what is "wrong" and become more attuned to the simple beauty of being alive.

A baffling and beautiful rescue [raises] questions about the power of prayer. People are scouring some 70 photographs looking for man they swear they saw at the scene of a car accident. He prayed, a life was saved. Why did he disappear, even from the photos. It's being called the Missouri miracle. A teenager with a beautiful smile, 19-year-old Katie Lentz, trapped in her mangled car, hit by a drunk driver. And first responders trying to get her out. [The] fire chief ... was concerned, because he was out of options. The tools weren't working. While inside that car, Katie had one request, to pray with the rescuers out loud. And then, right there, amidst the rows of corn, at the scene blocked off for nearly a mile, a man appears. He was dressed with a black priest's shirt, with a white collar. He had a small little white container of anointment oil. He asked if he could anoint the girl in the car. They allowed him to do it. A sense of calmness came over her. [One firefighter said] "we very plainly heard that we should remain calm, that our tools would now work." Moments later, it happened. A neighboring fire department arrives with a new set of stronger tools, finally able to cut through in the frame. They all turned to thank the priest, but he was gone. In fact, in all of those photos at the scene, no sign of the priest. Tonight, family and friends are grateful. Whether it was just a priest serving as an angel, or an actual angel, he was an angel to all those and to Katie. Katie's mother [was] very pleased that Katie's near tragic accident provides proof to all that miracles still happen. In Katie's words, pray out loud. Everyone at the scene, touched by that stranger.

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.

An extraordinary heart-shaped solar farm is set to be built on the Pacific island of New Caledonia. The 2MW "Heart of New Caledonia" is being built by solar company Conergy and should start producing power for 750 homes from early next year. The plant ... is expected to save around 2m tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions over its projected 25-year lifetime and reduce the French overseas territory's dependence on oil, gas and coal. The eye-catching heart shaped installation is made up of 7,888 panels across the four-acre site on Grand Terre, New Caledonia's largest island, with the design only visible from the air. The design is inspired by the "Coeur de Voh", or "Heart of Voh", an area of nearby wild mangrove vegetation that has naturally taken the shape of a heart. The "Coeur de Voh" gained worldwide recognition thanks to the aerial photography of environmental campaigner Yann Arthus-Bertrand in the best-selling book, The Earth from Above. David McCallum, managing director of Conergy Australia, said, "The 'Coeur de Voh' is an important landmark for the people of New Caledonia, and shows just how extraordinary nature can be. The 'Heart of New Caledonia' solar plant will be its man-made double, a landmark for clean power generation. It will also probably be the world's first beautiful PV plant, and perhaps the first beautiful power station of any description, anywhere on the planet."

Note: See a photo of this beautiful solar array at the link above. Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.

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